Downeast Again For A Bit

We ended up extending in Hermon for a few more days and boy, were we glad we did.  When we saw Doug and Nancy they told us about a seafood company, Cantrell's that in addition to having a regular market sends out trucks periodically to different places around the state, even as far away as Presque Isle!  We called them and found out they were sending a truck to a town only about 35 miles away from us, and since D&N had always been pleased and buy a lot of their seafood from them we decided to give it a try.  First we found out the times aren't exact and since we were told around 10:30-11:00 we showed up at 10:30 and found a line of about 25 people already in line.  We waited for about 30 minutes, no truck, so we thought we'd go try out a place for lunch in the general area and come back, maybe the line would be gone.

We went to a place called Anglers that have 3 locations around the state and had an excellent lunch, haddock chowder, broiled haddock and scallops, and awesome onion rings, even the cole slaw was dynamite:-)

After our delicious lunch we went back over to where the truck was supposed to be and sure enough there was a pickup with a couple guys and a bunch of coolers in the back and a line of only 5 people.  Pay dirt!  We picked up a nice large piece of swordfish, a couple pounds of gorgeous scallops, and then best of all 8 lobster culls for..........wait for it........$4.99/lb!!  And those of you that don't know what a cull is, it is a lobster with only one claw, or a small or damaged claw, perfect, especially when you both love tail meat the most:-)  We took them back, got out our boiler, cooked them up and then picked 1.7 pounds of lobster meat from them!

That translated to 3 meals of lobster:-)

As I said, we found the Pumpkin Patch RV Resort a very nice place, big sites, wonderful folks, and a great location very close to Bangor, but situated in the country, and a bonus of being quiet and dark at night.  We ran a lot of errands while in the "big" city, and since I've already started with food, I'll continue, in fact this post is mostly about food:-)  We stopped back at Timber in town, earlier this year we went and were pleased and when we got back we planned to give it another shot.  A very nice place with great food.  Jan had a wonderful rigatoni bolognese, and I had a delicious ahi tuna salad.

After we got back we saw a 5th wheel come in with something we had never seen before, duallies on their two axles.  We talked to the couple and they told us it was only done for a little while and afforded them, just as you'd think, an additional 4500 pounds of carrying capacity, pretty neat and unique, especially for full-timers like they were.

On the subject of food, those of you not from or familiar with Maine probably aren't aware of their particular food product called Red Snapper Hot Dogs.  They are bright red colored hot dogs made with natural casings to give them that wonderful snap when you bite into them.  I thought I'd take a picture when we were in the grocery store as an example.  I'm sad to say that we haven't had one this season with our present eating program, but maybe later before we leave Maine, we'll make an exception:-)

Right now is wild blueberry picking season, Maine blueberries are small and very flavorful and make wonderful homemade muffins.

So after all our doings outside of Bangor we went back east to Seaview campground in Eastport where we had been earlier with Karen and Tom.  This time we were only there for a few days, and we parked up off the water in an enormous site in the grass.  The weather was wonderful.

We had planned to get some lobsters again while we there, but after our coup with the culls, we put that off a bit.  We just chilled while we were there, headed into Eastport, walked around a little park there with a gorgeous view and saw what we thought was an oyster farm, a big operation.

Jan had been doing a bit of research on sea glass and thought it'd be fun to go try to find some.  One of the places listed was Mowry Beach in Lubec, and since low tide was mid morning we gave it a go.  And because the tides are over 20', it opens up an enormous beach area filled with many clammers and beachcombers.  It was a perfect morning, temperature about 72.

A lot of the clammers had driven their vehicles way, way out on the beach, and even though it looks muddy, it was quite firm and easy to walk on, lots of fun for a few hours and Jan even got a few shards of sea glass.  And after a successful morning of exploring we came back via Machias and Helen's for a fantastic bowl of haddock chowder!

So now we have made our way west along the shore to a spot close to Schoodic Point.  I am not going to share where we are staying as we had quite an issue and even got yelled at for having the audacity to have to change a reservation, so ended up having to pay for several days we weren't allowed to stay for if we hadn't ponied up the rest of the fees for the 4 days we had to cancel and wouldn't be there.  A confusing, long story I won't bore you with.

Hallelujah!

Why hallelujah?  Because we got to wash the motorhome today.  Doesn't sound so exciting probably, but we have encountered more rain this trip than any other in our memory, and we haven't been able to wash it since we left Florida in March, so to say it was dirty is the understatement of the year.  We expect our fuel mileage will increase at least a couple of mpg for the reduction in weight and decreased drag:-)

So we left Skowhegan with huge smiles on our faces after our amazing visit and meal with Doug and Nancy and proceeded to Houlton, ME.  It is just a few miles from the Canadian border and as far north as we have ever driven in Maine.  Many, many years ago when I first got hired by Delta, I flew into Presque Isle, the next town north a few times before they dropped the city.  I didn't remember anything specific as we never laid over there, but I do remember seeing the northern lights there and also in Calgary and Edmonton, all in the dead of winter though, so we want to check it out.

We got a glimpse of Mount Katahdin on the way, at 5,269', the highest point in Maine and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. 

We were very pleased with our campground there, the Houlton KOA, large sites, all grass with paved roads, very nicely kept, quiet and dark, although very few 50 amp sites. 

We didn't have too much planned there except for taking a few drives, one up through Presque Isle and Caribou, and we also wanted to drive over to Shin Pond and see the place we had cancelled because of rain and mud earlier this year.  We picked Shin Pond first and looking at Tripadvisor we found a little clam shack along the way in Patten, ME that sounded pretty good, yeah I know, food again:-)

Shin Pond turned out very nice, a gorgeous place and most likely we would have had no issues going there, but it is a long way from nowhere, and since we could do all we wanted from Houlton we thought we made the right decision, on the way back we stopped at the tiny little Craig's Clam Shop, and wow, were we glad we did.  It was so good we even drove the 40 miles back to go again on our last day.  Looking back on it, it turned out to be perhaps the best take out seafood that we have had this trip, and that is saying something!  The first day we had scallops, whole belly clams, and onion rings, to die for.

We got another view of Katahdin on our ride.

We also came back along the border with Canada that goes through the middle of Grand Lake and the St Croix river, beautiful view.

Jan had to run over to the grocery store, and what does she find, live lobsters on sale for $7.99/pound, and they will cook them for free.  What could we do?  Why obviously lobster rolls, in fact we did it twice, got them again on our last morning and had a second lunch on our way back south:-)

Oh so yummy!

We drove up through Presque Isle and Caribou to say we did it.  It was a gorgeous day. We found out this area of Maine is potato central, acres and acres of potato fields and it seemed like every farm we went by had a little building out front selling new potatoes, white, red, or Yukon Gold.  We stopped and bought some and they were wonderful.

Then as promised we made our way back to Criag's Clam Shop for another lunch, this time, scallops, haddock nuggets, and onion rings.  Amazing!

We were so inspired that Jan made a sensational Sticky Honey Shrimp Noodle salad by Marion Grasby that was sensational, spicy, crisp, and delicious:-)

Then we moved down to a campground in Abbot, ME, near Moosehead Lake.  It has been rebranded and had decent reviews although their price was high, we decided to go there.  What a mistake!!  It was terrible, narrow, curving narrow roads, trees not trimmed, sites were a mish mosh, felt just like a state park with bustling activity, campfires everywhere, kids running around, all for $100/night.  We felt raped.  We do NOT recommend Spacious Skies Balsam Woods campground, it is truly a ripoff.

But we did have a nice lunch in Greenville and took a ride all the way up to the Rogue River, a bit overcast, but what we could see of the huge lake was beautiful.

We then moved down to where we are now in Hermon a small town to the west of Bangor, and a very nice campground called Pumpkin Patch RV.  Large sites, nice grounds, pleasant people, great place which we DO recommend.  In fact we just extended here a couple days to get some more errands taken care of, and of course, the washing that I started the post with:-)

Our site at Pumpkin Patch